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On this day in 1095, Pope Urban II gave one of the greatest speeches in history.  Unfortunately, no one knows what he actually said.  There are five different versions of what he was purported to say, but none of them was written at the time of the speech.  Only one chronicler, Guilbert de Nogent, claims to have heard the speech.  One can question his memory, however, because he was writing 13 years later and evidently forgot that he was plagiarizing an earlier account.

The lack of a contemporary transcript is all the more amazing because the Pope was addressing a church council at Clermont, France.  True, there were fewer literate people in all Western Europe than on any street on Constantinople or Baghdad.  But the majority of European literates would have been at Clermont that day.  Furthermore, the topic of the speech was certainly memorable.  In the 11th century, a Crusade was more than just a glitzy term for a clothing drive. 

Even without a transcript, we can infer that the Pope had nothing good to say about the Moslems.  He apparently offered an unsurpassed benefits package to anyone who went on the Crusade: remission of past sins, pardon for any “excesses” committed–in good faith–on the Crusades, and reservations (with a seating upgrade) for Heaven.  By medieval standards, the Pope’s offer was better than stock options.

In March of 1095, the Byzantine Emperor had asked the Pope for help in recruiting a few hundred knights to fight the Turks.  A year later, the Byzantine Emperor found himself contending with the Pope’s response:  100,000 Crusaders. 

Whatever the Pope said, it evidently was a great speech.

Imagine Dick Cheney with sex appeal: as mean, greedy, and dishonest as ever but now with a “come-hither” look that George Bush couldn’t resist. (I will give you a moment to stop retching.) In a previous and more sensuous life, Cheney may have been Hugh Despenser–one of the greatest scoundrels of English history.

Edward II (1284-1327) ruled England as if it were an audition for “A Chorus Line.” He picked out the most alluring–if otherwise untalented–young men to run the kingdom. The king was married–politics can make normal bedfellows–but his preference was quite obvious. Edward bestowed titles and treasures on his special friends. One flagrant favorite was even given the queen’s jewelry–but Mrs. Plantagenet evidently was the lesser queen of the two.

The nobles, embracing medieval family values, murdered that particular favorite. But Edward II did not seem to get the hint. He just found new boy toys and the worst was Hugh Despenser. Hugh was not content being lavished with estates; he stole them as well. He used the king’s infatuation as a royal license to embezzle and extort. If the nobility was already hostile about “the lifestyle”, it really resented being robbed. The nobles organized a coup in 1321 and forced Edward to banish Despenser.

In exile, Despenser�found gainful employment as a pirate, and he had time to consider the errors of his ways. He should have terrorized or murdered his victims instead of just robbing them. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. All he needed was a second chance, and that occurred after one year.

The nobles be damned. Edward missed his Hugh and recalled him from exile, fully indulging his favorite’s greedy and vindictive whims. The nobles who had ousted Despenser now were hunted down. The Earl of Lancaster was beheaded; he was lucky enough to be a member of the Royal Family and was spared public disembowelment. The Queen herself had only looked askew at Despenser; so she was merely dispossessed of all her estates. She understandably resented that, went home to France and plotted a rebellion with exiled English nobles. (One of them, the Earl of March, even became even lover. Be fair: the woman was certainly entitled.)

The Queen, her Earl and their army landed in England in 1326. Their public intention was to rid the realm of Despenser. The rebellion also had a more discreet goal: to get rid of the King as well. If the lack of any resistance is any indication, the rebellion was more than welcome. Since Despenser was not of royal blood, his public disembowelment was permissible–and very popular. It occurred on this day in 1326. (The King’s death in 1327 was a private affair–except that his screams could be heard over a considerable distance.)

The throne passed to Edward III; somebody got the Queen pregnant. And the new King was said to look like a Plantagenet. (Perhaps Edward II had closed his eyes and made the effort for England.)

British historians recently compiled an interesting list: the worst Englishmen of the last thousand years. Of course, Hugh Despenser made the list. In fact, he made the top ten and was named the worst Englishman of the 14th century.

The fall of the Roman Empire was somewhat exaggerated. There was no massive barbarian offensive that overran and annihilated civilization; the fifth century Germans were more subtle than their modern descendants. Indeed, many of the tribes were invited into the enfeebled empire. Rome hoped that the barbarians might be better behaved as guests than invaders.

Given the Italian male’s increasing reluctance to leave an orgy to stand guard on the Rhine, Rome had to employ barbarians as mercenaries. If five centuries of mutinies, assassinations and civil wars give any indication, Roman armies were not conspicuously loyal. Now, however, they were not even Roman. The legions and the tribes became ethnically indistinguishable. Rome merely had the better dressed Germans.

In Western Europe the Empire simply succumbed to reality. Germanic armies had been ruling in the name of Rome, pledging their nominal allegiance to whichever powerless cipher was sitting on the throne that day. But the etiquette grew tiresome; the pretense was simply abandoned. It was not a cataclysmic end. The roads did not disappear or the aqueducts collapse overnight. With the exception of the Angles and Saxons–who destroyed Londinium before they decided that it might be a nice place to live, most barbarians genuinely admired Roman civilization. Looting was just their form of affection. The Germanic kinglets and chieftains actually tried to perserve the civilization they had conquered. The day to day administration of their realms was entrusted to Roman councilors; who else knew how to read and count?

The deterioration was gradual but unavoidable. Without the knowledge and resources to maintain aqueducts, cities dried up into villages. Provinces that had once been integral parts of an thriving empire now were insular and isolated. Furthermore, the Germanic invasions continued, and the semi-civilized Visigoths and Ostrogoths were supplanted by more barbaric tribes. (The Franks were especially notorious for their treachery, but after 1500 years you have to admire their consistency.)

A century after the Roman Empire had collapsed in Europe, so had civilization. A few vestiges would tenuously survive; the local mispronunciations of Latin would become Spanish, Portuguese and French. And there still was a church that identified itself with Rome. (The barbarians showed a superstitious consideration for other peoples’ religions; their religion would not receive the same courtesy.)

However, Europe was only half of the Roman Empire. The Mediterranean Sea was a little harder to ford than the Rhine, and the Germans had yet to invent the U-Boat. The Empire’s richest and most cultured regions–Anatolia, Syria and Egypt–were more threatened by Byzantine bureaucrats than�barbarian tribes. The Dark Ages was Europe’s embarrassment, and the chief reason that the Byzantines felt superior. They were.

The turkey, which reminds me of a cyborg chicken and tastes as metallic, actually was named for the country. Europeans of the 16th century thought the bird resembled a fowl common to Anatolia.

The Turks, however, never thought of naming the fowl for themselves. They call it the Hindi, which refers to India. (I have no idea what the real Indians call the bird but it might be something vindictive about Pakistan.)

Furthermore, but for a slight Byzantine miscalculation, we would be referring to that misnamed bird as the Anatolia.

Until the 12th century, there were no Turks in Turkey. The peninsula was a nice and thoroughly Greek region, one of the most lucrative parts of the Byzantine Empire. In 1071, however, a Greek aristocrat named Andronicus Ducas became the inadvertent founder of Turkey.

The Byzantine general simply wanted to kill his emperor Romanus IV but was too finicky for an assassination. Ducas waited until the imperial army was fighting Turkish nomads in eastern Anatolia, near the town of Manzikert. He then ordered a retreat, abandoning the emperor to the enemy. Ducas rushed backed to Constantinople to install his cousin on the now empty and available throne.

(In fact, the Emperor Romanus was captured alive. Under the circumstances, the Turkish Sultan could coerce a favorable treaty. Romanus was soon after released; but his return to Constantinople was unappreciated by his usurping successor. The Byzantine retirement package consisted of blinding and exile.)

Unfortunately, the Byzantine Empire was in just as miserable shape. Andronicus Ducas had overestimated the army’s ability to retreat. It disintegrated, leaving Anatolia defenseless. The Turks weren’t nomads after that.

And we won’t be trying to digest an Anatolia tonight.

Molded by grade school lessons and Hallmark commercials, we reverently refer to those brave pioneers at Plymouth as our “Pilgrim Fathers.” Of course, if we actually did file a class action paternity suit, most of us couldn’t prove it. Furthermore, we really wouldn’t want to be related to them. The Pilgrims were a bunch of 17th century Jerry Falwells.

They were the loony fringe of the Puritans; compared to them, Oliver Cromwell was a liberal softie. We were taught that the Pilgrims fled religious persecution in England and Holland. In fact, they fled religious tolerance in those countries.

Pilgrims could not abide other Protestants (except the equally morbid Presbyterians); you can only imagine how they regarded Catholics. The Pilgrims wanted nothing less than a theocracy where only they had the freedom of worship. In England, however, the Anglicans seemed unwilling to persecute themselves. Holland was even more sectually depraved; it tolerated Catholics and (gasp)Jews. That was the Pilgrims’ idea of Hell.

And the Pilgrims were everyone else’s idea of obnoxious. If the Calvinist bigots wanted a theocracy, England did have a practical solution. In the most generous way of saying “good riddance,” the Crown offered the Pilgrims their own colony in North America. Thousands of quiet miles from England, the fanatics would be free to bore and bully. If they survived, then God and England had a new colony. And, if they didn’t survive…well, we mustn’t think that the Crown was actually rooting for the Indians.

Portfirio Diaz was the best President of Mexico that American business ever had. For just a reasonable–if continual–bribe, railroads, Standard Oil, and mining companies could exploit all that Mexico had to offer. Some of Diaz’s amassed fortune was trickling down to the populace, at least to his family, the crew of his yacht and the teenage girls who seemed to rejuvenate the elderly tyrant. However, that was not really a majority of Mexico’s population.

Diaz had been a war hero against the French in the 1860s; but 34 years of corruption seemed a sufficient veteran’s benefit. By 1910, Mexico was ready to overthrow the outrageous rascal, and the hopes and the grievances of Mexico would center around a most incongruous figure. As a revolutionary, Francisco Madero was the soul of well-mannered moderation. As a leader, he was innocuous rather than charismatic. The hope of Mexico’s impoverished masses was a wealthy aristocrat who had been educated everywhere but Mexico. But this education abroad had made him an admirer of societies that were neither feudal relics or shameless kleptocracies. Even if he did look upon Mexico from an Ivory Tower, it was with genuine compassion.

His liberal principles had earned him several bouts in a Mexican prison. However, having the advantage of being rich in the Diaz days, he could always bribe his escape. While in exile in Texas, Madero issued a call for the Mexican people to overthrow Diaz and reestablish democracy; it was on this day in 1910.

Rebellions began throughout Mexico, and even the army seemed loathe to defend the Thief-in-Chief. Six months later, Portfirio Diaz was on his yacht, cruising to Europe with his usual contingent of teenage girls; he lived happily ever after. Francisco Madero was the new President. On his private estates, he had genuinely improved his workers’ standard of living; he imagined that he could do the same with all of Mexico. Unfortunately, Mexico proved a little more difficult. Moderation seemed to please no one.

Revolutionaries wanted more drastic reforms than Madero was prepared to make. Conservatives wanted no reforms at all. Worse for Madero, his innocuous moderation terrified American corporate interests in Mexico. They evidently preferred paying bribes than taxes, and a scrupulous Mexican government might interfere with their business. The American Ambassador Henry Wilson, representing those business interests, initiated his own foreign policy: a military coup to overthrow Madero.

Assuming that everyone had his good intentions, Madero had not tried to purge the Mexican Army of Diaz’s cronies. Unfortunately, a number of generals proved quite nostalgic for the old kleptocracy and were eager to reestablish it. Ambassador Wilson had no trouble orchestrating the coup. Madero had entrusted his security to Gen. Victoriano Huerta. Huerta organized the firing squad.

If you have seen “The Wild Bunch”, “One Hundred Rifles”, or “Viva Zapata” you know what happened next. It was a free-for-all civil war. Any general could claim to be the President, and anyone could claim to be a general. The Conservatives fought the Revolutionaries, and the Revolutionaries fought each other. In hindsight, this probably was not the best environment for American businesses; it was impossible to keep track of whom to bribe.

By 1920, the civil wars had bled themselves dry, and Mexico had arrived at a political compromise that more or less has lasted to this day: a government of moderate thieves.

We all have the image of Henry VIII as that bloated bully in the Holbein portrait. Either fat had a higher aesthetic value in the 16th century or those English courtiers assured the tempermental King�that he looked wonderful. Fortunately, Henry was easily convinced of his good looks. When a middle-aged blob, he certainly was self-deluded but at least he had an excellent memory.

The young Henry actually was handsome. His mother, Elizabeth of York, was considered a beauty. Her parents, Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, were regarded as the best-looking people in England. Elizabeth Woodville had to be gorgeous; to have her, Edward IV caused a civil war.

She was a widow, with children, and only from the minor nobility; worse, her late husband and her family had been supporters of the rival Lancastrian dynasty. The lusty Edward IV wanted her as a mistress; she refused his advances and insisted on marriage. At that very time, Edward had commissioned his chief supporter, the Earl of Warwick, to negotiate a marriage with the sister-in-law of the King of France. Warwick, the most powerful noble in England, had successfully negotiated that marital alliance when he learned that Edward had eloped with the Woodville widow. “The Kingmaker”, as Warwick was known, was humiliated and furious; he then switched his allegiance and considerable forces to the Lancasters. Warwick succeeded in ousting Edward and restored Henry VI to the throne in 1470. A year later, Edward returned. Warwick was killed in battle and Henry VI was imprisoned in the Tower of London. The deposed King apparently fell on several daggers while in chapel.

In any case, handsome Edward IV and beautiful Elizabeth Woodville produced seven children. (He also acquired a pack of greedy in-laws and two stepsons who could have been role models for Paris Hilton.) Edward died in 1483, thinking his young son Edward would succeed him. Unfortunately, the regent of England was Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Although the late King’s brother, he was also Warwick’s son-in-law and had always resented the Woodville queen and her upstart family. Uncle Richard had other plans.

And the war over Elizabeth Woodville so divided the Yorkist party that the illegitimate Welsh branch of the Lancastrian line would soon kill its way to the throne. When the illegitimate half-second cousin, once removed, Henry Tudor ascended to the throne, he required a legitimate princess for some resemblance to respectability. The eldest daughter of Edward IV sufficed quite nicely.